TWO ‘RED SHIRTS’ SHOT IN
PRE-ELECTION VIOLENCE
COVER STORY
The shooting of two members
of the United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship
(UDD) on the night of the 21st
April at their rally site may
well be a portent of the level
of violence the country can
expect in the lead-up to the
next national election.
The incident took place at the
open ground on the corner of
Sukhumvit Road and Soi Khao
Talo where the UDD, better known
simply as the Red Shirts, were preparing for a major rally a couple of
days later.
According to witnesses, the two
men, one aged 45 and a close friend
of core Red Shirt leaders, the other
49, were shot at by two unidentified men who arrived at the front
of the site on Sukhumvit Road on a
motorbike. The shooters,who were
both wearing full-face helmets,
probably to avoid identification
rather than being concerned for
their safety while riding a motorbike, fired five shots in the direction
of the men. The 49-year-old was

By Staff Writers
Police said they weren’t sure if
the shooting related to politics, and
were leaving all options on the table,
and anywhere else the options
might fit.

Background
They put a nasty hole in the big
rice cooker
wounded in a leg while the 45-yearold was wounded in the left leg and,
more seriously, the stomach. He
was taken to the Intensive Care
Unit at Pattaya Memorial Hospital.
The two shooters, described
by witnesses as probably aged between 20 and 30 years old (even
though their faces were hidden)
and wearing black jackets, did not
say a word prior to opening fire.
After expelling their five shots they
rode off down Sukhumvit Road.
Since they were riding a motorbike
with no license plates they were
unlikely to be stopped by police.

Violence in the period prior to a
national election is nothing unusual
in Thailand. Alongside rampant
vote-buying, shootings resulting in
the murder of opposing candidates
and their supporters, are as common
as karaoke bars full of out-of-tune
warblers.
Just over a decade ago, the leadup to the January 2001 national
election was marked by possibly
the worst violence ever witnessed
across the country. A total of 43
politicians, canvassers and bureaucrats were shot dead nationwide in
election-related acts of violence.
Most of these incidents occurred in
the North and Northeast.
That poll was notable for the

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15
Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party led by
Thaksin Shinawatra running one
of the most expensive and most
populist election campaigns in
the history of Thailand. Thaksin
promised one million Baht for each
of the nation’s more than 70,000
villages, said he would suspend
repayments of farmer’s debts for
three years, and promised a health
insurance system in which any
treatment would be available for
30 Baht.
Many voters, especially in the
rural areas, cast their ballots for
TRT because of frustration with
the incumbent Democratic Partyled government of Prime Minister
Chuan Leekpai. This government
had come into power in November
1997 during the economic crisis
sparked by the collapse of the Thai
baht a few months earlier. Many
people believed the recovery after
the severe economic crisis of 1997-

The inside of the Red Shirt rally site
98 had excluded them. TRT won
32.1 percent of the primary vote,
but because of the new first-pastthe-post system put in place for
single member constituencies they
picked up 49.8 percent of the seats
in the House of Representatives.
The 2005 election was claimed
by some organisations to be the
worst of all time in terms of rampant
vote buying, especially in the North
and Northeast (according to the
PollWatch Foundation, Thailand’s
most prominent election watch-

dog). Others claimed far less cash
had changed hands in return for
votes than in previous polls.
The National Police Office issued statements claiming acts of
election-related violence such as
shootings, killings and attempted
murder were reduced by more than
half when compared with 2001. Yet
two days before the 2005 poll there
was a sudden upsurge in violence
against canvassers, according to
press reports of the period. What
is certain is that between the begin-

ning of December 2004 and the 6
February 2005 polling day at least
10 people were killed and eight
others wounded in election-related
violence.

Instability
Soon after the TRT’s landslide
election victory in 2005 there were
observers who noted the expanding
Southern insurgency, coupled with

Pattaya One 03

government policy of promoting
senior officers favourable to the
incumbent administration, or with
family connections to TRT, out
of turn was leading to increasing
factionalism within the senior
ranks of the armed forces. One
commentary wrote with some prescience in 2005, ‘Should the chasm
between Thaksin and the veteran
military officials continue to widen,
this could have negative consequences
for political stability…’
The rise of the People’s Alliance
for Democracy (PAD), better
known as the Yellow Shirts, and
the street protests which followed
led to Thailand’s first military coup
for 15 years when Thaksin was
ousted in September 2006. Since
that time the political landscape
has been marred by even greater
polarization with the emergence of
the UDD.
Sadly, Thailand looks to be
potentially facing the most violent
run-up to a national election in
its history, and the shooting in
Pattaya is just the beginning. It’s
worth noting that the British
Foreign Office reacted immediately
to the shooting by posting a travel
warning on its website, suggesting
people should avoid the Sukhumvit
Road-Soi Khao Talo junction area
on the night of Saturday 23 April
when a major rally took place at
the site.

They seek him here, they seek him there
An apparently well-known hitman,
who is suspected of killing a Police Colonel in Central Thailand on
19th April, is thought to be residing
close to Pattaya.
The man, identified as 42-yearold Khun Nalong, known by the
nickname Pap (as in smear), has
allegedly been involved in many
contract killings, including one
in Pattaya, which took place two
years ago.
National television channels
were showing security camera
footage of the suspect shooting
dead Police Colonel Greugrit at his
house in Nakhon Sawan Province.
It now appears that he has gone just

well, he wasn’t at home waiting for
the police the last time they looked.
An arrest warrant has been issued
for him in relation to the most
recent killing. Down in Huay Yai
district, on the outskirts of Pattaya,
Police Lieutenant Colonel Paksuwat
from the local police station, has
expressed an interest in finding
the suspect because it is thought
he was involved in the death of a
45-year-old local businessman who

We just love our guns

CCTV footage of the murder
of the police colonel

a little too far this time. According
to press reports Khun Nalong is
thought to have killed more than
100 people all over Thailand during
his career. You would think he
might have faced some kind of
police action before this, something
along the lines of counselling, at
the very least, if the police were
afraid of him. Now, it appears,
he is out of control and didn’t
seem to care that he was captured
on CCTV as he gunned down the
Police Colonel.
Khun Nalong is now on the run;

was murdered two years ago in
Huay Yai.
If and when the police do
manage to catch Khun Nalong,
they say they intend to use the full
weight of the law against him. It’s
not certain just how many charges
can be laid against him, but police
can probably ‘cherry-pick’ from
the 100 or so alleged murders he
has managed to commit so far. Of
course, they have to find him first.

04 Pattaya One

Fun Town’s most vibrant

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Pete’s Peregrinations
By Peter Lloyd

For the
Love
of God
During Easter weekend, I saw three
instances of excessive religious
devotion in the Philippines, two of
them shocking, one just bizarre.
I knew of the insane ritual of
nailing people to the cross over
here on Good Friday but I had
not heard about self-flagellation,
nor of people running through the
streets bearing heavy crosses, but I
saw instances of both of these this
weekend.
Firstly, in Manila, I heard a
rhythmic clanking nearby, and
went to investigate the noise, only
to find a man in a public park - a
tough twenty-something looking
guy, not some spotted, Bible-hugging wimp, kneeling on the floor,
rhythmically whipping both sides of
his back with a rope, which held
thin bamboo strands on the end of it.
The spectacle didn’t look too bad
from the front, although it was still
a bit of a surprise to come upon

such an unusual scene.
But when I walked around behind
him, the full horror of what he was
doing was, ahem, laid bare. His
back was in a terrible condition,
flayed red raw, and he was bleeding.
I asked a bystander how long
he’d been doing it – two hours,
apparently. He was praying for
something.
Then one of his mates began
slapping his back all over the
wounds, which made the whipper
yelp, but he seemed to be enjoying
it, presumably the devotional aspect
of it and not the sado-masochistic
element.
Next, on a bus to Subic, I went
past a long line of maybe 20 teenagers and young adults, all male, and
all stripped to their waists, doing
the same thing, publicly whipping

themselves, as they walked along a
busy road.
They were hot and their wounds
were red raw and bloody. The sun
was on them, and sweat mingled
with blood dripped onto their
trousers and onto the road. It was
a shocking sight.
I don’t know where they were
headed, but I hoped to a hospital.
I didn’t have my camera handy
but this internet photo graphically
shows what I saw.
Surprisingly, the Catholic church
frowns upon this practice of selfharm, although that is probably
because, as with ‘apparitions”, it is
cut out of a piece of the action when
people try to commune directly
with God without the cartel’s help.
And finally, as I walked down
the road earlier, I saw 13 people

Beating the Meat
all carrying crosses. Three huge
ones, carried by older men, and
nine smaller ones to which younger
teenagers were tightly strapped, all
of them racing along the road,
laboring under their heavy burdens,
in the humidity and heat of midday.
I saw a woman go to give the
lead guy (the Jesus figure) a drink
of Gatorade. As he tried to drink it
the man in charge of the procession
kneed him in the back and pulled
him off it, presumably to keep it real.

Can Phuket’s Stupidity be Pattaya’s Gain?
When a State fails, and is unable
to enforce the law of the land or
to protect its own population, or
tourists, in its jurisdiction, serious
consequences can follow.
In Pattaya we see it on the beach
as the police and City Hall can only
stand and watch helplessly as the
jet ski thieves destroy Pattaya’s
reputation abroad, unable to take
decisive action to stamp it out.
Now Phuket has again gone one
better – or worse, and shown
Pattaya what can happen if these

mafia scum are not dealt with
decisively by the police and the
State at an early stage.
A year ago tuk tuk drivers
blockaded some American navy
ships in Phuket’s port, in a very
damaging dispute for the economy
of Phuket, but motivated by lowball selfishness and greed. They
were objecting to sailors going into
town in a more cost-effective and
comfortable fashion, namely, minibuses, and not using their ripoff
tuk tuk service.

This caused serious alarm to the
US Navy, and showed the world
that Phuket was basically a rogue
island, seemingly dictated to by the
tuk tuk mafia, where the local
authority and the police were unable
to even guarantee the safe passage
of US navy personnel.
Now the same mafia idiots have
done it again, and recently blockaded a cruise liner, which had
disembarked hundreds of tourists
for a day trip to Phuket, eventually
securing an agreement for 50% of

the cruise liner’s future business,
assuming it would ever want to go
back to that Wild West island.
Any diversion of business from
Phuket’s port to Laem Chabang
and Pattaya, either naval vessels
or cruise liners, would be welcome
business for the city, assuming it
can get its own mafia problems
under control.
If it doesn’t, Phuket’s fate awaits
Pattaya. And nobody here really
wants that.

Pattaya jet ski bandwaggoners in the local press
Whilst all media pressure is good
in order to have the jet ski scams
ended, I was surprised and amused
to recently read one local rag claim
they had brought the scam to the
world’s attention, when as any
keen-eyed reader knows, that scoop
certainly belongs to Pattaya One,

when we featured, as a front page
exclusive story, the outrageous
scamming of three Irish tourists
in early December last year, which
created an international storm.
And then we followed it up with
another exclusive front page story

on the scammers changed tactics in
February.
I don’t mind papers claiming
credit where it is due, which would
usually be for (non-exclusive)
sychophantic coverage of the
opening of a fag packet by the Great

Contact me at pattayaonepete@gmail.com

and the Good, with smug photos to
boot. But not for this.
If, in its short life, Pattaya One
has had any impact on Pattaya it has
been to make some of the previously bland and supine local press
up its game a bit, but I suspect we
won’t get the credit for that either.

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Pattaya One 05

Fun Town’s most vibrant

Letters to the Editor
If you would like to voice your opinion in print,
please send us your thoughts and ideas by email to: editor@pattayaone.net
Letters may be edited to improve clarity and spelling.

Helpers of the ocean
Sir,
The Pollution Solution Group
would like to honor these two lovely
people and also ask your great paper
to please do the same.
They took time from their holiday
to help us remove dangers from
Jomtien Beach, making it a safer
place for children, sea life and the
ocean. They also asked for some literature to share with others, which
we give freely to whom ever ask for it.
We find that everyday, there are

Thais and Farangs thanking us for
what we do, some offering to take
time out of their busy lives to help.
We remove dangers to make it
safer for the voiceless, children,
wildlife waterways also watering,
feeding and putting mange medicine
on the homeless dogs.
Many people also offer their help
by buying dog food or donating some
baht to buy what ever is needed to
continue making a difference, we
are also educating the unknowing

and asking the uncaring to please
wake up.
Pattaya City Hall is very aware of
what we do daily, and also help us
in many ways.
We are all in this neighborhood
together, lets all please start taking
care of it.
The Pollution Solution Group
Gerry aka KOTO Keeper Of The
Ocean
by email

No Sign of the cleaners; but wait for the response
Sir,
Not wishing to take up space in your excellent
paper, and not wishing to be negative about
cleaning up the beaches, which desperately
need it, I would like to reply to some points in
Mr Koto’s (aka The Pollution Control Group’s)
response to my recent letter about him removing
his ugly signs from the beach environment.
I am pleased that he is going to make better
signs, but doubt that plonking giant signs every
100 metres in English, Thai and Russian will
(a) be effective or (b) make Pattaya any more
beautiful.
The signs would also need to be in Arabic,
Parsi, Turkish, and many other languages of the
Indian sub-continent to really hit home. How
big are they going to be?!
Knowing the Pollution Control Group is also

responsible for feeding and encouraging the
packs of mangy, dangerous dogs that infest the
beach and scare tourists is also a worry. These
unsightly, dogs frighten tourists and crap all
over the beach, giving Mr Koto more “waistersize” experience.
Given Mr Koto is so “in” with City Hall,
I wonder if he should change his strategy
completely, and instead of littering the beaches
with his unsightly signage, he could instead
campaign for City Hall to employ beach clean-up
crews, which wouldn’t cost much in Pattaya,
who could clean the beaches all day, every day.
City Hall are one of the worst litterers in
Pattaya with their useless junk, including,
recently, the beach lifeguard platforms, which
now clutter the beach as they rust to death.
Can Mr Koto go into City Hall and ask his

friends there who was responsible for this latest
fiasco, and what they plan to do about removing
them in order to clean up our beaches?
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Cross
by email
As regular readers will have noted, Koto, of the
so-called Pollution Solution Group, corresponds
with us almost every issue. Since the Letters to
the Editor page is designed for any and all interaction between readers we are actually grateful
for him taking the time and making the effort to
write to us. Naturally, we also appreciate your
correspondence in response and think you have
raised some valid points. We have no doubt Koto
will respond to your response to his response of
your original response to his initial letter.

Unsafe Pedestrian Crossings
Sir,
I want to warn your readers
about the danger of crossing roads
in Pattaya.
I crossed with my girlfriend to
go to the North Pattaya bus station
today, the lights were in our favour
and five out of six cars ignored the
lights and went driving through
them at a speed that would of killed
us both if they would of hit us.
All I could do was shout and
swear at the drivers from close up,
but I am angry and worry that
people can be killed here.
What can pedestrians do in this
situation? Get a photo and report
them? Throw something at their
cars?
Yours sincerely,
Mark,
by email
Somehow, Mark, the dangers of
trying to cross a road in Pattaya,

as well as elsewhere in Thailand,
are manifestly clear to the majority
of foreigners who live here or are
regular visitors to the Land of Selfish Smiling Motorists. Pedestrians
appear to be viewed and treated as
some kind of Untouchable underclass. After all, they rate so low
on the scale the administrations
of Pattaya have hardly ever seen
fit to attempt to provide proper
pavements or walkways throughout much of the city.
We happen to feel the introduction of the 40+ light-controlled
pedestrian crossings throughout
the city was a step in the right
direction. The problem, as with
so many things in Pattaya, is enforcement. No one in authority
apparently gives a rat’s testicles
about making sure drivers and
motorbike riders do stop when a
pedestrian signal is showing red.
This is somewhat surprising given

their potential as a revenue raiser.
As for throwing something at
the offending cars, it might feel like
a good idea but carrying something like a house brick around
under your arm could get quite
tiring. Anything less than that isn’t
much of a weapon and the local

police frown on foreigners carrying rocket-propelled grenades,
shotguns and Magnum .357s.
Will a pedestrian, crossing
correctly at a set of green lights,
eventually be run down and killed
by a selfish, ignorant, impatient
driver? More than likely, sadly.

06 Pattaya One

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Town’s most vibrant

The

BellwetherEnd
By Mike Bell

Thai Characteristics II

I’ve reached the age where I can
appreciate the joy of giving. When
I was young I was poor and therefore ‘careful’ with my money. Now
I have enough to live on with a bit
to spare. I’d promised my wife’s
father a first trip in a plane and was
hoping to enjoy the journey through
his eyes. What a disappointment it
was, thanks to the Thai habit of not
betraying emotion.
Thai Air had a weekend promotion to Chiang Mai, so I booked
three return tickets and off we jolly
well set. Well perhaps ‘jolly’ is not
quite the right word. Papa rarely
cracks his face to show his teeth
on account of him only having one
blackened stump, achieved from
a lifetime of chewing some leafy
concoction. Whilst I didn’t expect
him to cavort jiggling from one foot
to the other like an old guy with a
prostate problem, I thought I might
detect some sense of awe or wonder as the plane left the ground.
We landed in Chiang Mai an
hour later. He had gazed steadfastly through the window. I think
he thought he was watching a small
TV screen showing a video about
cloud formations. There was no
hint of surprise when he found

himself in Thailand’s second city.
He was a non-smoking, teetotaler
who liked temples and I knew instinctively I was in for a fun-packed
three days. Eventually, when I was
completely templed out, I suggested
to my wife that they might like a
wander round a local market whilst
I had a cold coffee. They were away
forty-five minutes before my sanity
shattered into a million pieces.
I sat on the terrace of a posh
hotel – you know it’s posh when
they add 7% local tax and a service
charge on to their display prices.
The hotel was on a corner of a Tjunction by a gate in the old walled
city. The main road was full of
traffic but the long arm of the T was
a soi pedestrianised for the market.
There were three policemen on
duty armed to the teeth with whistles. There was none of the banditry
practiced by the Pattaya police on
soi Buakhow at rush hour. They
had obviously been professionally
choreographed. Two would insert
themselves arms outstretched into
the traffic with perfectly synchronized movements. The other would
beckon the pedestrians across the
main road.
All of this was accompanied by
the eardrum-shredding music of

Inebriated Russian
parks in the middle
of the road

Mr Radislav Obernikhin, a 41-yearold Russian national, was woken from
his slumbers on the back seat of his
pickup just after 3:30 one morning by
police volunteers. The reason for the
interest of the patrolling volunteers
was that the pickup was parked in the
middle of Highway 7 and potentially
posed a traffic hazard.
Mr Obernikhin, who was practically
naked and far from a pretty sight,
told the volunteers he had spent the
evening drinking alcoholic beverages
with friends and readily admitted to
being somewhat intoxicated. As he
was driving home he said he became

overwrought with tiredness and decided he needed to go to sleep immediately. So he pulled his vehicle over
to what appeared to be the side of the
road, disrobed, climbed into the back
seat, and promptly fell asleep.
The volunteers, recognising that
a quality tourist needs quality sleep,
decided not to bring him to the police
station, where it was likely he would
‘blow the bag’ as it were and be over
the legal blood alcohol limit, but instead drove Mr Obernikhin back to
his home where he could sleep in a
real bed and not pose a danger to
other road users.

the whistles. It was non-stop. Apparently the din could mean ‘keep
coming’ to cars approaching them
if accompanied by beckoning
gestures, or it could mean ‘stop and
stay stopped’ until the hands were
lowered. He-who-was-responsible
for the pedestrians played the same
tune and had the same gestures.
At first I was amused, then annoyed and finally insane. What
made it incomprehensible to a
Westerner was that they were
manning a pedestrian crossing
with, here’s the punch line, fully
automatic lights which alternately
stopped the traffic on red whilst
the pedestrians were given a green
light. They were totally redundant.
Their whistles were totally unnecessary. How they kept it up without
fainting or bursting into laughter
at their own futility, I don’t know.
And they were so serious about it!
Then I got to thinking; easy once
I’d screwed up a torn serviette to
make earplugs – I’d probably get
charged 31 baht 23 satang by the
hotel management, but hey, I was
on holiday. I thought noise is another Thai characteristic. We’ve all
experienced parking to the Lone
Ranger tune from an attendant’s
whistle. What does it mean? ‘Keep

reversing until I stop whistling?’
‘When I stop whistling you’ve hit
the car behind you?’
Whoever sold Thai businessmen
the idea that driving slowly about
in a van creating minor traffic jams
whilst shouting incomprehensible
slogans would put their business
name on the public’s lips? How
many prospective customers run
to keep up with the van to hear the
full message? How many of the
frustrated motorists silently vow
to shun any product or service that
delays them to such a degree? How
much fuel per hour is burnt? Is it
time for the Green Shirts to take to
the streets?
Have you ever watched a soberly
suited Thai turn into a Monster
Raving Loonie the second someone
puts a microphone into his hand.
At any public function, like a wedding or Supermarket demonstration,
the decibel level hits excruciating
and the performers lose all sense
of time. Watch and/or listen to
the halftime comments from the
three wise men during Premier
league soccer matches. They say a
picture’s worth a thousand words;
well why can’t we see some highlights instead of listening to such a
load of Kap!

How good is the air
around here?

Ambient Air Testing vehicle at cnr Sukhumvit Rd and Sth Pattaya Rd
Drivers heading south down
Sukhumvit Road would likely have
seen the Ambient Air Quality
Monitoring vehicle parked just past
the intersection with the South
Pattaya Road lights.
Pattaya One is not sure if the

results of these air quality tests
are ever made public or if the
vehicle is merely parked by the
side of the road to give the impression ‘something’ is being done
to monitor air quality in the Pattaya
area.

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Pattaya One 07

Fun Town’s most vibrant

Kris & Noi’s

a farang manages on their patch.
It would be a nice gesture to take
inexpensive little presents for your
girlfriend’s parents and immediate
family. No problem about being
seen around the village with your
girl, but remember that rural Thais
are rather conservative, so lay off
the cuddling in public! relax and
enjoy the experience.

Private

Do you have a question about customs or culture, or perhaps
just a general
comment on life in Thailand? Email Kris & Noi at: knprivateposts@gmail.com
Price Patrol

Even though the exchange rate for
foreign money is so bad, there are
still some tourists throwing their
money at the girls. They show off,
buying drinks for groups of girls so
that they hang around them. The
girls charge them sky-high prices
to take them out and because the
tourists don’t know or care about the
accepted rates, they pay up. Then
they get greedy, and when the tourists have gone they demand higher
prices from the regular expats. I’ve
tried telling some (in a friendly
chat) about them being ripped off,
but they don’t care, they say they are
on holiday and want a good time. If
these flashy spenders would just
stick with the normal rates that have
been around for years for go-go and
bar girls, we would all benefit; by
throwing their money around they
are going to spoil it for regulars, as
the girls will keep on demanding
more.
Donny
Complaints about big spenders
spoiling the wenches probably
began from the time that Pattaya
knickers were first removed for

servicemen’s dosh. There have
always been, and always will be,
some people who are prepared to
splash the cash, and others who
wish to pay as little as possible
for sex. Incidentally, why do some
expats like to hunt for the cheapest sex but don’t complain about
spending large sums on alcohol; is
booze more important and enjoyable to them than a leg-over? It
seems that many resident expats
and frequent visitors fall into the
lower-paying—or tight-arse, to use
a technical term—category of punter, and they want everyone to pay
similar to what they consider correct. you agree that prices haven’t
changed much for years, so why
claim that big spenders spoil it for
others? The girls naturally try to
increase their earnings, but when
the tourist season ends they adjust
their fees to suit the deep pockets
and short arms market. Apart from
people like you sticking their oar
in to other people’s business, how
would tourists know what the “accepted rates” are? Maybe you and
other regulars should try putting
up posters in all crumpet-supply-

god’s waiting room

Some of the artists of the 60's and 70’s are revising their hits
with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers who can
remember doing the "mashed potato" as if it were yesterday.

They include:
Bobby Darin --- Splish, Splash, I Was Havin’ A Flash
Herman’s Hermits --- Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Walker
Ringo Starr --- I Get By With A Little Help From Depends
The Bee gees -- - How Can You Mend A Broken Hip?
Roberta Flack --- The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face
Johnny Nash --- I Can’t See Clearly Now.
Paul Simon --- Fifty Ways To Lose Your Liver
The Commodores --- Once, Twice, Three Times To The Bathroom
Procol Harum --- A Whiter Shade Of Hair
Leo Sayer --- You Make Me Feel Like Napping
The Temptations --- Papa’s Got A Kidney Stone
Abba --- Denture Queen
Tony Orlando --- Knock 3 Times On The Ceiling If You Hear Me Fall
Helen Reddy --- I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore
Leslie gore --- It’s My Procedure, and I’ll Cry If I Want To
Willie Nelson --- On the Commode Again

ing areas, stating just what should
be paid? That would make you
popular with the ladies!

Nervous Traveller

I’ve made a few trips to Thailand
and now I’m getting serious with
a great girl. On my next visit she
wants to take me to visit her family in the north east. I’m a city boy,
so will feel strange in a foreign village, and she says that there are very
few foreigners in her district. I am
concerned that the locals may be resentful seeing an expat with a local
girl, as they are not used to seeing
foreigners.
Gordon Bennett
Northeastern Thais are known for
their friendliness towards strangers, whether Thai or expat, but,
visiting an area where expats are
a rarity, you will certainly receive
many wary or curious looks. you
will be the centre of attention, and
will be visited by relatives, friends
and neighbours. This can be disconcerting at first, but don’t worry,
they will only be wondering how

Shorter Short Time

In these straitened financial times,
I have a suggestion that will benefit
everyone involved in bar-fining;
introduce a one-hour bar fine,
naturally at half the cost of the usual
2 hours. A regular partaker would
make a very decent saving without
sacrificing his pleasures, and the
girls would return sooner to spend
more time entertaining at the bar
and encouraging customers to buy
drinks, therefore generating more
profit for the bar owner. The lovely
ladies would, of course, charge the
same, as they are still providing the
pleasure, albeit quicker, and would
have more opportunities to be barfined again. Everyone wins!
Ike Laudius
rather a good idea. Notwithstanding
the website warriors who boast of
their sexual prowess, many Pattaya
punters are well past the sexual
stallion age; after the nooky and
the clean-up shower, they feel
completely sated but find they have
another hour or so left to look at
Thai TV with a body donor who has
lost interest once her performance
has ended. In fact, as experienced
girls can go through the shower,
girlfriend-type cuddle, bang, cuddle,
shower, any tip, and bi bi routine in
very fast time, perhaps short time
barfines should be paid for in minutes taken.

New Post Ofﬁce
proves a winner
The relatively new Pattaya City
Post Office, located on the western
side of Sukhumvit Road, services
much of the eastern and southern
parts of Pattaya as well as parts of
Jomtien.
It’s certainly far easier to access
than the main Naklua post office

or the Soi 13/2 branch (known
colloquially, of course, as Soi Post
Office), unless your only mode of
transport is shanks’ pony.
There is ample parking out the
front and the interior is spacious;
it makes a trip to the post office
almost a pleasure.

Pattaya Post Oﬃce on Sukhumvit Rd Jomtien

08 Pattaya One

Fun Town’s most vibrant

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Living Healthy in Pattaya
By Khun Dee

More than
just a pretty
smile -- Lots
more
Good oral hygiene goes beyond
resisting the urge to use profanity.
It also goes beyond brushing your
teeth once or twice a day. While
daily brushing is a good habit to get
into, it’s not nearly enough to keep
your pearly whites pearly white
and, at the same time, help prevent
plaque, gingivitis, and periodontal
disease. But it goes beyond all that
as well; proper care of your teeth
and gums may save your life.
Studies in recent years have shown
that daily brushing and flossing are
crucial to protect your heart, reduce
the risk of diabetes, prevent stroke,
and help keep your arteries from
clogging. If that isn’t enough to motivate you to brush and floss, maybe
these newest findings will light a fire
under your ass: people with healthy
gums enjoy a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
Studying the health histories and
lifestyle habits of close to 50,000
men for nearly 18 years, researchers
compared men who had suffered
gum disease with men who had no
such problems. Those with gum
problems were 14 percent more
likely to develop cancer--any kind
of cancer--although the link was
especially strong for lung and pancreatic cancer.

Remember
to floss;
floss to
remember
In an ongoing study at West Virginia School of Dentistry, scientists
are looking into the link between
gum disease and memory loss. So
far, based on oral examinations,
blood work, and memory tests on
men and women older than 60, they
have determined that those who
scored the lowest on the memory
test—mirroring early Alzheimer’s
disease symptoms—had the most
association with gum disease-causing bacteria. And flossing is the best
protection against gum disease.

Healthy teeth

Without regular flossing, your entire mouth can suffer. A soft, sticky
bacterial film (plaque) accumulates
on neglected teeth, especially below
the gum line. Eventually, the acids
in this plaque destroy the outer
enamel of teeth. Gums may become
irritated and bleed. Breath may
smell bad. After a while, the plaque
hardens into crusty yellow or brown
deposits (tartar) that make it even
easier for more plaque to build up.
Eventually, lack of flossing can lead
to gingivitis, periodontal disease,
and tooth loss.
As if that weren’t reason enough
to improve your dental habits, research also suggests that flossing
may protect your heart. That is, there
is a definite connection between
periodontitis and cardiovascular
disease. Doctors are not yet sure
what is behind the connection, but
it makes the simple task of flossing a
no-brainer for optimal health.
Similarly flossing and clogged
arteries may be related. Inflammation
is a crucial link in the causal chain
that leads to arterial plaque and
obstruction. Researchers also speculate that bacteria from the mouth
may enter the bloodstream and
contribute to inflammation and
artery clogging.
If you already have certain health
concerns, flossing may help protect
you from any further health complications. For example, periodontal
disease appears to make insulin

resistance worse. When cells require more insulin to take up blood
sugar from the bloodstream, blood
insulin and, eventually, blood sugar
levels will rise. Increases in blood
insulin and blood sugar levels both
have undesirable effects, such as the
development of type 2 diabetes.

Sound bites
What you put into your mouth-other than a toothbrush and dental floss--also plays an important
role in dental health. It’s important
to eat lots of greens and fruit, and
equally important to avoid sugar.
You’ve known since childhood to
go easy on sweets and soft drinks,
but did you know that it does not
matter if the sodas are diet or not?
It’s not only the sugar in soft drinks
that help destroy teeth, it’s also the
carbonation and the acids. Both
work to erode your tooth enamel,
which presents major problems. A
recent study indicated that all carbonated drinks had an impact on
tooth enamel. Citrus-flavored sodas
hit teeth hardest, but colas caused
problems, too; root beer caused
only slight erosion.
To keep your teeth gleaming, cut
back on things that have a staining
affect, such as coffee, red wine,
tea, blueberries, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, tomato sauce, and
grape and cranberry juice. If you
consume those items and can’t get

to your toothbrush, swish with water or drink some green tea, which
may be the path to healthier gums.
Research showed not only that
frequent green-tea drinkers have
better results during dental exams,
they also had less frequency of
bleeding gums. It’s thought that
the catechins in green tea prevents
cavity-producing plaque from forming, which in turn protects teeth
and gums.
Equally prudent is increasing
your intake of apples, celery and
carrots, which are natural stain removers. And consider that spinach,
broccoli, and lettuce create a healthy
film over the teeth that serves as a
stain barrier.

Flossing Tips
Ready to floss? Here are some
tips to help you get the most out
of that little white string:
* Slide the floss under your gum
line and gently curl it around
each tooth as you floss.
* Floss gently, but don't quit
because your gums bleed.
Eventually, they will become
stronger and bleed less.
* Use fresh floss for each
tooth juncture.
* If you find it difficult to
manipulate floss with your
fingers, purchase dental-floss
picks or holders that anchor
sections of floss in a small,
U-shaped plastic device.

A Pattaya Success Story
Just to prove it isn’t all scams down
at the beach, and that some searelated businesses in Pattaya really
do deliver a quality product, one just
has to witness the early-morning
scenes on Pattaya Beach Road on
any day of the week.
Usually hundreds of tourists,
Chinese, Indian, Korean, Russian,
young and old alike, are disembarking from tour buses, crossing
the road in front of your vehicle
(never at the crossings, note) and
then taking to the water to enjoy
the brief thrill of parasailing from
fixed moorings out in Pattaya Bay.
From the land it looks like organized chaos out there, as multicoloured parachutes criss-cross the

skyline, being towed by fast speedboats, sometimes seeming certain
to collide.
Luckily, safety is a paramount
concern for these operators, and

their commercial success is reflected in the sheer volume of daily
customers who excitedly go out to
fly in the sky with them, safely and
unscammed each day.

Organised Chaos

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Songkran
Special
At this time of year, Pattaya ‘s expats
split between those who hate eight
days [try almost 10!! Ed.] of miserable Songkran mayhem and those
who love it.
Representative of many Songkran
threads on Pattaya’s web boards,
Thai Visa’s “Songkran Pattaya –
Begin When?” was a case-study in
the views of the two camps, kicked
off succinctly by Darrel with:
When will it begin? Too bleedin’
soon. When will it end? Not soon
enough.
Dogtim chipped in with: I
agree. Pattaya is the worst place
to be for Songkran, and Actiondell4 observed: This will be a week
of stupidity…I am not looking
forward to be powerfully squirted
in the eyes with a water gun nor
having a bucket of water chucked
over my meal at an outdoor restaurant.
Songkran avoidance techniques
included Yenoormit’s: I will be
staying in my room for a week or
getting the hell out of here. Luudee
said he was off to Makro, stocking
up for the next 3-4 weeks.
There were a lot of comments
agreeing that Pattaya’s dates should
be fixed with those all over the
country and that the Songkran
period in Pattaya should be MUCH
shorter.
Exsexyman however, thought
even with harmonised dates, it
would not make the slightest
difference in Pattaya. The knuckle
dragging tattooed morons would
still be standing outside the bars
a week before, with their high
powered water guns and a big tub
of iced water firing at anybody
going past. People riding motor
bikes seem to be their favourite
target, aiming for the eyes hoping
to see them have an accident….
Darrel highlighted one of the
major problems about living here
during Songkran – closed businesses: I was annoyed when I went
out to Soi Bukhao this evening and
found that not only was my
favourite (cheap Thai) restaurant
closed, but my second and third
most favourite restaurants were
closed also.
Pattaya_girl highlighted another,
more serious Songkran danger: The
water throwing is pretty bearable,
but when you are thrown chunks
of ice whilst trying to ride a motorcycle it is pretty dangerous!
Janverbeem said he had seen: a
security guard with 3 buckets and
a 200 liter water barrel targeting
motorbikes on sukhumvit which
get thrown a full 10 liter bucket in

Fun Town’s most vibrant

ABOVE BAWD

IN PATTAYA

By JOHN THOMAS
our Internet Forum Snoop

their face.
Tropo had an interesting theory:
That’s the reason why Songkran
lasts so long in Pattaya - because
of the huge number of motorcycles
here. Throwing water on passing
cars is hardly exciting and there
aren’t too many pedestrians on
Sukhumvit Road.
Uh oh. Jwschroeder weighed
in with - I just don’t get all the posts
about “idiots” throwing water--when
that’s the entire point of the festival!
Yes, better to stay at home, rather
than participate in a Thai festival
with bitterness and resentment.
I have never seen Pattaya so
happy and vibrant than during
Songkran. Everyone was exceptionally friendly and warm, and
especially the Thais who are usually
not that interested in farangs. I had
endless discussions with regular
Thais who otherwise only consider
me from a distance...
This post came in for a major
poster-pasting.
Phil Conners, using Moderator
detection tools said: Probably one
reason he don’t get it is that he is
not posting from Thailand ...
Exsexyman roared: You don’t
know what you are talking about.
The official Songkran day in Pattaya is the 19th. What goes on in
Pattaya in the week preceding this
date is as far removed from the
“entire point of the festival” as it
is possible to get. Do you honestly
think that the point of the Thai
New Year festival is for hordes of
drunken idiots, (almost exclusively
non Thais), to roam the streets
every day, or stand outside bars
with high pressure water guns

filled with iced water, sometimes
mixed with god knows what, deliberately firing into peoples’ faces
at point blank range? Or standing
in the road doing the same thing to
motorcyclists in the hope that they
will crash their bikes. Your ignorance is staggering. Grow up.
Actiondell4 gave a graphic
account of being caught in the “fun”
of the festival- Yesterday I got a
baht bus up to Soi Bukhao. Sitting
opposite was a young girl about 11
years old.
The baht bus driver decides to
stop along the route where drunken
farangs are using high powered
guns; for no reason other than to
get his passengers wet.
A blast got the girl in the face
and ice water was chucked over
me, the baht bus driver still stopping and turning around inside his
cabin laughing, motorists behind
him sounding their horns for him
to go. I decide after another bucket
over me to kick his back window
to get him to go, and he gets out of
the bus to confront me and as he
does that a ice bucket of water is
chucked over his head , and inside
the open door. I get out and walk
off without paying the idiot.
Hyku1147 also had a war story:
Last Songkran an Irish Pal, in his
early 60s, got accosted by a couple
of overly aggressive mid 20s
farang wanke_rs. He told them not
to dump the bucket of water on him
because he was not feeling well,
and it was very late in the evening.
The moron dumped it on him, and
Tommy broke his nose. The other
guy ran off.
4.Real gave posters something

Pattaya One 09
to think about – where the water
comes from: Great fun....Especially
for those refuelling their 50 gallon
drums from a truck on Sukhumvit
with a sign on the truck saying...’We
empty your toilet’....
Beardog bravely entered the
fray at this point: Just got back from
Pattaya. We went through about
165 gallons of water & had an absolute blast. I think it was the most
fun I have ever had in Pattaya. The
crew I was with only hosed people
with water guns & active participants. We all stayed away from
dousing mobile phones, cameras
& Ipods. And pretty much all motorcycles…..It was fun hosing the
punters at the bars on beach road.
A torrent of fury erupted in response to this post:
Janverbeem asked him: So I
guess you asked everyone first if
they had by chance a mobile phone
or camera hidden in their pocket
before you soaked them with water?
Exsexyman How could you
possibly stay away from drenching
people with mobile phones, cameras
or I pods? Do you have x ray eyes?
“Driving slowwwwwly through the
WAR zone”! Jeez. How old are you?
If it wasn’t so pathetic it would be
funny. Why are baht buses serious
game? Perhaps because they are
full of people who are not in a
position to fight back? People who
are maybe heading for a meal with
their kids in an air conditioned
restaurant, or on their way shopping
in an air conditioned mall. And who
now have to sit shivering, probably
catching their death of cold.
Well done. As long as you and
your “crew”, (how old are you
again?), had an “awesome” time
that’s all that matters eh.
NALAK advocated zoning some
of the city off for Songkran participants in future: The mindless
idiots are a small minority of the
population who bugger it up for the
majority. How funny it is to see the
girls who are going to work in nice
uniforms get drenched? Oh that’s
so funny. Why cannot a bowl be
used - why does it have to be a high
powered water pump.??? Quite a
lot of urine in the mix as well and
even a bit of acid and chilli for good
measure; side splitting fun.
Unfortunately, Exsexyman was
hit on a baht bus on Beach Road:….
I received a full load of iced water
from a high pressure gun. I saw it
coming and ducked but my friend
and his wife copped the lot. One
of the usual suspects, overweight,
tattooed, wife beater vest, face like
a smacked arse etc.. And at midnight! Quality tourists!
And that just about wraps it up until next year.
All comments or Web Board
tipoffs gratefully received at
jt@pattayaone.net

10 Pattaya One

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Town’s most vibrant

Pattaya Focus on ......
Transport Trouble in Fun Town

By Street Stroller

In the past couple of editions we
have looked at the baht bus system,
how it is failing the city, its residents
and the increasing numbers of
tourists coming to Pattaya.
The baht bus system simply
cannot cope with Pattaya’s transport demands, and the city needs a
more professional solution.

Better Transport
“Advisors” needed
The city needs to break the baht
bus collective’s stranglehold on
transport policy for the city, which
has seen a number of transport
options poisoned in the well of
self-interest and “enlightened
collaboration”.
For example an introduced bus
system which was conveniently
allowed to die a quiet death just
a few years ago. Then there is the
scandal of the pathetic taxis –
which are controlled by the baht
bus collective and which never put
their meters on, making a mockery
of their very existence in Thailand’s
second city. Another organization
should be allowed to set up a
proper metered taxi system, but
that won’t happen because of the
usual conflicts of interest, which,
when it comes to important issues
like transport policy, are definitely
damaging the best interests of
many for the benefit of the few.
Also, the baht bus mob’s opposition to the monorail, not because
it would probably have been a
badly-built mess (it takes the city
five years to build a road from
Jomtien to Pattaya, so how are
they going to oversee the building
of a monorail?) , or a massive
hands-in-the-till, waste of public
money, but because it didn’t conform
to the business interests of their
baht bus collective.
But, for all their faults, they
may yet become viable partners
in finding a near-term transport
solution to the city’s problems, as
I suggest below, in a review of the
other viable transport options in
Pattaya.

Transport Options - between the
devil and the deep blue sea

Baht buses line up in race to find free-spending Russian tourists

Own Transport
Pattaya’s roads are already full of
traffic. The public transport system
should reduce traffic on roads, not
increase it, yet many residents and
visitors, unimpressed with the limited baht bus system, have resorted
to their own transport, making
congestion worse, and if the number of Russian residents in Pattaya
increases (as they seem to be doing)
more traffic is guaranteed.

Motorbike taxis
Perhaps only an urban myth, but
motorbike taxi drivers are the guys
you are supposed to go to if you
want someone offed. (However I
suspect they’d get lost, turn up at
the wrong house, drunkenly misfire
their weapon or crash in traffic on
the way home, so save your money
and use them only for transport).
There are thousands of motorbike taxi drivers in Pattaya, on almost
every corner. I am personally a fan,
except if I get a drunk rider, smelling
of booze, which sometimes happens
on long holidays.
Their plusses include being fast
and effective, especially in trafficclogged streets, but the downsides
are obvious – dangerous, open to
the elements, subject to the whims
and lack of knowledge of the riders,
and at risk from Pattaya’s dangerous motorists.

Metered Taxis
The embarrassment of Thailand’s
Second City not having proper
metered taxis for hire is shameful.
It was also amusing when the
taxi scammers recently whined that
Bangkok taxi drivers, working WITH
their meters, were taking business
away from these lazy good-fornothings on Pattaya’s streets.
That said, having hundreds of
metered taxis on the streets of Fun

Town wouldn’t exactly play well
environmentally, or in terms of
smoother flow of traffic.
But metered taxis should be
available in Pattaya and it is a disgrace that they are not.

Walking
Between the heat, pollution, dust,
dangerous traffic and obstaclestrewn pavements, the idea of
walking long distances in this city
is a joke.
However if the footpaths could
be cleared of junk (much of it rotting
away from scams and corruption
schemes of regimes past), and if
this administration pledged to ban
any further useless obstacles on the
pavements, it would literally be a
step in the right direction.
It would also help if they ensured traffic lights worked, and
police monitored and fined drivers
who don’t stop at pedestrian lights,
to prevent people from getting
killed by morons speeding through
red lights.
Walking in the city should be
easier, then more may do it, although
it is now a common sight to see
Russians walking on pavements
where previously few foreign pedestrians ventured.

Bus
Recently a new bus service started
which snakes through Pattaya and
Jomtien and ends at the Floating
Market. This infrequent, little publicised service operates only on one
route, but it may be the first crack
in the baht bus monopoly.
The fact the baht bus mob allowed
it to run at all gives hope to those
who dream of a regular, air-conditioned transport option the City so
desperately needs in the near-tomid term.

New bus Network
Needed
Pattaya needs a proper bus mass
transit system. Not one bus or two
buses, a couple of times a day, but
a properly planned bus system for
the city and outlying districts.
Why it doesn’t have one now is
down to one thing – the entrenched
vested interests in the city of the
baht bus mob and its business
partners, and until the “what’s in
it for me” brigade can actually see
something in it for them, the city’s
transport policy will always be
doomed.
But a bus system needn’t cut out
this mob, it might work BECAUSE
of them.
Why couldn’t the present baht
bus mafia be given the contract
to operate a new bus system, the
city doing a finance deal on a fleet
of buses, leasing them to the mob,
then setting fares and working out
routes and operating guidelines
with which the baht bus collective
have to comply.
Who would care who ran it, so
long as the system actually worked
for the benefit of the city and its
inhabitants?

Long Term
Options - Monorail
and Rail
Much derided at the time for being
an expensive, cynical bit of plunder-porn, a monorail would make
sense for the city, if it was properly
built and funded, and corruption
was kept to a minimum.
Of course, for all those reasons,
it will never be built but it isn’t a
bad idea as a transport solution,
if it extended the whole way from
Naklua, through Pattaya, out to
Jomtien and ended in, say, Na
Jomtien.
In fact I think it would be a nobrainer, offering an excellent, clean
mass transit system for the city.
And this brings me to another
possible solution, although far into
the future: a link to the fast rail link
which goes from Bangkok to the
airport. Or alternatively the Bangkok
rail link which is slowly being built
out as far as Bang Na.

Action Soon
What is certain is someone in Pattaya’s administration has got to
start thinking of the bigger transport
picture soon. What we have is
unacceptable, unless people are
directly benefitting from it, and
transport problems are only likely
to get worse as tourist and resident
numbers increase in Pattaya.

Contact us at pattayafocus@gmail.com

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most vibrant

Pattaya One 11

12 Pattaya One

Fun Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most vibrant

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most vibrant

Pattaya One 13

14 Pattaya One

Fun Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most vibrant

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Pattaya One 15

Fun Town’s most vibrant

THE
Mum Arroy (Delicious Corner),
open daily from 11 am to 11 pm,
(83/4 Soi 4, Naklua; Phone: 038
223 252) is located at the end of
Naklua Road. It’s near the back of
the Banglamung Police Station.
It’s also close to the Sanctuary of
Truth. Go to http://restaurant.
pattaya.com/EN/RestaurantInfo.
aspx?id=185 for a map and directions. Look for their triangular
sign, which is only in Thai. This
place seems to attract mostly Thais
and Asian tour groups; but the
humongous menu is in English as
well as Thai. You’ll have an easier
time communicating with the staff
if you bring a Thai friend. However,
I must say that the staff was pleasant, attentive and efficient, even
though they were also dealing with
a tour group consisting of 200
travelers. All of our orders were
correct and were promptly delivered.
The restaurant has a gigantic outdoor deck along the sea. There’s
also an air conditioned dining
room, which came in handy, as it
started to rain midway through
our meal. We came for lunch; but
if you go for dinner, you can catch
a beautiful sunset. This place is by

FRUGAL
GOURMAND

oyster (120 baht) with hot and
spicy sauce really tickled the palate. We had fried rice with prawns
as an accompaniment. A couple of
prawn and squid dishes rounded
out the meal. For our land lubber
friend, fried chicken with cashew
nuts (120 baht) was perfect and the
best he’s had; so he said.

Steamed Horse Crab at Mum Arroy

WORTH THE EFFORT

no means intimate or romantic.
However, the food was reasonably
priced and absolutely delicious. Our
party of four ordered a half kilogram of horse crabs at 250 baht.
With the slightly spicy, accompanying sauce, they were meaty and
delectable. They easily peeled open;

no need for a crab cracker. A half
kilogram of grilled rock lobster, at
300 baht, was equally succulent.
One of our Thai friends started off
with a spicy prawn salad, which
he enjoyed, but I didn’t try. A big
portion of steamed mussels (80
baht) and an order of fresh water

Their menu is reminiscent of the
old Encyclopedia Britannica that
they used to sell door to door when
I was a kid. It’s gigantic and contains just about any kind of fish,
seafood and non water-based dish
you could possibly desire. Each
listing is accompanied by a photo;
so, you’ll know what you’re getting.
Prices are generally quite reasonable. This can be a reasonably
priced meal; or a splurge, as in our
case.
Don’t forget dessert. They offer
a big selection of ice creams and
Thai style sweets. They also have
a branch in Sri Racha, opposite
Samitivej hospital, which has the
same menu, but seemed a bit more
elegant, with its big aquarium
display. It’s also right on the water.

If you have any favorite restaurants you’d like included; or would like your restaurant reviewed,
email me at thefrugalgourmandpattayaone@gmail.com

Something’s missing
By night, the garish television screen sitting atop the ‘famous’ Walking Street sign
can be seen from as far away as high-floor
hotels and residences in north Pattaya,
and it’s a wonder the city administrators
haven’t claimed it could be viewed from
outer space.
During the day the TV screen is less
blinding, but one has to wonder at what
tourists really think when they first see the
clunky looking entrance to Walking Street,
which replaced the previously iconic sign
at the beginning of 2008. With a giant
Samsung spread underneath the screen it
might be possible to think you are about to
enter some factory complex, obviously run
by the Samsung corporation.
Then there is the Walking Street sign itself. The last ‘e’ in the word ‘street’ is missing, so we are left with ‘Walking Stret’. We
can only hope the missing ‘e’ didn’t fall off
during the evening hours when the walkways are usually busy with perambulating
males and females. It’s probably better to
lose a single letter than see the whole edi-

fice come crashing down. Then again, we doubt there
are many people who would bemoan the loss of this
new, supposed state-of-the-art, glorified advertising
hoarding with the missing letter. You’d think someone
would have noticed by now and fixed it.

Is your Thai boyfriend surgically
attached to his ‘mowbi’? He has a
man bag, knapsack, carry bag and
pockets but even when the sacred
mowbi is not glued to his ear or
monopolising his eyeballs, being
twiddled with for Twitter, Facebook, Hi-5, txt mssgs (sic) and
MSN messenger, even watching
TV soaps, the bloody thing is stuck
in his palm- just in case. The functions of the ubiquitous mobile telephonic communications device
are impressive. Earphones plugged
into the shell-likes, radio is heard.
The internet and all its manifold
miracles are but a thumb’s jab
away. It is a recording device into
which he wails a sorry rendition of
the latest Look Tung hit to provide
instant playback torture.

In addition, it is a camera‘Mine’s got 56 gadzillion pixels!’
An otherwise forgettable meal at
MK is preserved for dubious posterity. He will hold the thing at
arm’s length and merrily self snap
away producing thousands of images of himself with chin framed by
forefinger and thumb- what is that
pose (and they all do it) all about?
If he looked up the word, ‘vanity’,
in the dictionary, he would see a
picture of himself. He will spend
countless hours, slouched with his
legs over the arms of a comfy chair,
reviewing several years’ worth of
these photos. A bigger flash card
has been purchased and inserted
to accommodate this vast archive
of self-portraiture. The current
favourite pic appears as the mowbi’s

‘wallpaper’. And don’t get me started
on the video function.
Slightly less time is spent playing daft digital games that beep and
burp with disturbing frequency.
The tiny, luminous screen flickers,
damning the notion that inanity is
boring. Quite the reverse. Inanity
cures boredom, apparently. Endless menus are endlessly explored
in the fervent hope that a function
has been overlooked and once discovered will reveal the location of
El Dorado or the secret of Nirvana.
Moreover, when is the ‘mowbi’
eventually put to use in the primary
purpose intended? Urgent news?
Nah! More likely, ‘Have you eaten
yet?’ or, ‘Where are you?’ or the
even more irritating, ‘What are you
doing?’ ‘I’m talking to you on the

GAYMARCH

House Boy at Mango 69 Villa

69 Villa, located on Julan Drupadai 69. I wonder how they got that
particular address. (Julan means
Street.) It’s a two bedroom villa;
and you can either rent one bedroom or the entire villa. If you rent
the whole place, think of the possibilities. As the villa just opened, its
website (www.fruitvillasbali.com)
may not be fully operational as of
press time; but you can email them
at info@fruitvillasbali.com. Mango
69 is a short walk to the gay bars
and a short taxi ride to the beaches;
gay and straight.
Across the street, and under the
same management as Mango 69
Villa, is the recently opened Banana Spa. (I guess these guys are
into fruit.) You can get all kinds
of massages (and happy endings)
from an assortment of beautiful
and handsome young men. Jalan
Dyana Pura is the ‘gay bar’ street in
Seminyak. There are less than ten
bars, but they seem to be hopping
every night, especially weekends.
Drinks are about 50,000 rupiah
(around 150 baht) and the bars get
busy toward 11 pm or so; and stay
open late. Most of the bars present drag shows and also have gogo boys. However, the boys are for
your visual pleasure only. There’s
no bar fine or ‘off’ system in Bali.

James Barnes is editor-in-chief of
OUT in Thailand magazine.
www.out-in-thailand.com
lesbian and even straight punters
and also offers a variety of drag
shows. Bottom’s Up, Chaps and
Face Bar are recent additions
and worth visits. Not specifically
gay and about ten minutes away
in Kuta, is the Double Six Disco.
There’s lots of eye candy for you
here and many opportunities to
meet willing young men.

Email: gaymarchpattayaone@gmail.com

Eat, Pray, Party: I decided to hit
the road, so to speak, for Songkran
and booked a last minute flight to
Bali on Air Asia. The plane departs
at 6 am. So, if you decide to go, try
to sleep on the plane, so you are
awake and alert for your first night
of debauchery on the Indonesian
isle. Seminyak, about a half hour’s
drive from the airport in Denpasar,
is where most of the gay activity
is centered. There are many gay
and gay friendly accommodations,
including clothing optional resorts, such as Spartacus (www.
spartacvs.com), a few minutes from
Seminyak. I stayed at the Mango

bloody ‘phone!’ But the one annoyance, the one outstanding, testicle
aching irritation, the great white
bull elephant in the room, is that
despite all the wonderful technology
stuffed into that tiny mowbi- the
festering things don’t work. Witness the folk wandering about with
the ‘phone at one ear and a finger
in the other, shouting, ‘I’M SORRY
YOU’RE BREAKING UP!’ The incessant calls that drop off. Mai mee
san yan! No have signal! For the
sake of Mr Bell and everything that
is good and decent, why don’t they
make telephones that can be used
as telephones? Rant over.

Take a crack at surfing
at Kuta Beach
On the other hand, don’t despair.
There’s a plethora of money boys
hanging around waiting for you
to buy them a drink and make arrangements to accompany you to
your room. Across the street from
the bars, there are dozens of boys
lined up, waiting to be picked up.
Bali Joe’s is one of the most
popular bars. It’s a long and narrow
affair presenting drag performances
and sexy, muscular go-go boys on
the bar. It tends to get packed on
weekends with lots of regulars and
tourists. Mixwell welcomes gay,

In the afternoon, you’ll definitely
want to visit Callego Café and
Massage You can enjoy a meal on
the deck or rent a sun bed on the
grassy area adjacent to the beach.
Before you can say, “I’m horny,”
you’ll meet lots of guys offering
massage and other services. You
can even meet nice guys, who aren’t
money boys. They’re located on the
“gay” section of Petitengel Beach.
Of course, Kuta Beach is a must.
It’s not particularly gay, but provides an abundance of sexy guys in
swimsuits, and other attractions.
You can watch local and Aussie
boys surfing the waves. Toward
late afternoon, you’ll see young,
muscular Balinese men stacking
and lugging the surf boards to the
storage area. You may spot some
local school boys rinsing off in the
outdoor shower.
Quickies: 12 May is DK’s birthday
(half of the defunct El Duo; now
El Uno?) The celebration begins
at 9 pm at Café Royale in Boyz
Town. Pattaya Pride is holding a
quiz night on 10 May starting at 9
pm. The 100 baht admission goes
to Pattaya Pride charities. Great
prizes go to the winners.

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Town’s most vibrant

THAI Lite
Revolutionizing ESL
By S. Tsow

My buddy Fardley Nerdwell is
really proud of his girlfriend Noy.
“Singlehandedly, this modest and
unassuming Thai girl will revolutionize the teaching of English as
a Second Language,” he predicted
recently. “She has developed a new
method of language teaching which,
if adopted, will result in a quantum
leap in the English competence of
Thai students.”
“I’m all agog,” I said. “Tell me
more.”
“Simply by watching television,
Noy has figured out that there are
only two expressions which any
student of English really needs to
know in today’s switched-on, fastmoving world. They are ‘y’know’
and ‘absolootly.’”
I started thinking about the
number of times I’ve heard people
say “y’know” and “absolootly” on
TV talk shows. “You may be onto
something here,” I conceded.
“In the United States,” Fardley
continued, “and even in Europe,
every movie star, singer, sports star,
and public figure peppers every
sentence with the utterly meaningless interjection ‘y’know.’ In fact, I
believe that you can scientifically
measure a person’s verbal facility
by counting the number of time he
says ‘y’know’ within any given unit
of discourse. The more often he
says it, the more verbally incompe-

tent he is.
“‘Y’know’ has no meaning. All
it tells me is that the speaker is
inarticulate. Each time he says
‘y’know,’ he is actually telling me:
‘I am groping for words here, but I
am trying to hide my incoherence
by using this shameless little filler.
I hope you will take it as a friendly
attempt to interact, to draw you into
my discourse, to reach out to you,
my listener, in a desperate but
inarticulate plea for bonding.”
“Amen,” I said. “So if the intent
is to be friendly, why do you object?”
“Because it has no meaning, it
is utterly unnecessary, and it interrupts the flow of the sentence,”
Fardley snapped. “It is verbal incompetence masking as the tailwagging of a friendly dog. Every
time I hear this idiotic expression, I
want to scream, ‘Do I know WHAT?
I DON’T know! YOU’re the one
who’s speaking! YOU tell ME!”
“Careful of the capital letters,
they’re hard on the eyes,” I cautioned him.
“Then there’s the brainless
word ‘absolootly,’” Fardley fumed.
“What’s wrong with ‘yes’?”
“’Absolootly’ is more positive,
more definite, more vigorous,
hearty, and firm,” I replied.
“Well, I have a problem with it,”
Fardley huffed, “and so did Jesus
Christ. ‘Let what you say be simply

yes or no,’ he says in Matthew 5:37.
‘Anything more than that comes
from the Evil One.’ I bet people
would stop saying ‘absolootly’ pretty
fast if they knew it came from the
Evil One.”
“What was your point about
Noy?” I asked.
“Ah. Well. Noy has figured out
that if you’re listening to an American, even if you don’t understand a
single word he says, you can make
him think you understand him
completely if you just nod wisely
and say ‘absolootly’ after every few
sentences. And in speaking to such
a person, every time you’re stuck
for words, just throw in a ‘y’know’
or two. He’ll think you’re speaking
perfect American English, when in
fact you’re simply struggling to
remember your grammar rules.”
“That’s great,” I said. “Noy has
figured that out, has she? The girl
will go far in life.”
“This is part of her new method
of teaching English. But mostly she
focuses on idioms. Noy says we can
forget about grammar, structure,
and sentence patterns. English
consists of nothing but idioms. You
just have to memorize them all. It’s
a little like learning how to read
Chinese, where you have to memo-

Pattaya One 17
rize every character.”
“For instance?”
“Take the idiom ‘taka.’ She identified this idiom by listening to me.
I’d say I have to taka nap, taka bath,
taka break, taka look, taka pee,
taka poo. Do you realize how many
times a day we use the expression
‘taka’?”
“Not until now,” I said.
“Dozens of situations require us
to use this indispensable idiom, yet
so far as I know not a single methodology teaches it systematically.
Taka trip, taka walk, taka ride, taka
bus, taka train, taka taxi, taka boat,
taka plane, taka swim, taka pill,
taka chance, taka vacation…”
“Okay, okay, I get the picture,” I
said.
“By introducing Noy’s method,
called English Thru Idioms, we
can create a new English-teaching
methodology that will sweep the
world,” Fardley concluded.
“Absolootly,”
I concurred.
“Y’know?”

S. Tsow can be flamed, y’know, at
s.tsow@ymail.com, except, y’know,
when he’s trying, y’know, to master
the English idiom “taka.” Absolootly.

For more information contact:
advertising@pattayaone.net or
call Howard on 087 747 8555

www.pattayaone.net
All prices quoted are exclusive of VAT or other government charges

Fixture list printed: 8 March 2011

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Town’s most vibrant

Pattaya One 21

Chopsticks
A first time tourist made the comment recently that, “I thought they
used chopsticks to eat. I’ve been
practicing at home for weeks.” Being
a know-it-all and a font of mostly
useless information, I could not resist
setting him straight.
The Chinese are very big on the
use of chopsticks but Southeast
Asians, including the Thai, are
mostly ‘fork and spoon’ eaters. In
this part of the world chopsticks are
primarily used to consume noodle
soup. Sounds silly, but they use the
chopsticks to eat all the solid components of the soup before drinking
the liquid using one of those large,
flat, traditionally ceramic, spoons.
Chopsticks date back more than
5,000 years in China. As populations
grew and resources became scarce,
food was chopped into small pieces
so it could be cooked rapidly, thus
needing less fuel. This eliminated
the need for knives and chopsticks
became the utensil of choice. By
500 A.D., chopsticks had spread
from China to other countries such
as Korea, Vietnam and Japan.
Chopsticks were not invented
to consume Western-style meals
and cannot be successfully used
to “tuck into a bit of steak”. Then
again, have you noticed how some
people eat a steak meal? Before taking a bite they use a knife and fork

to cut everything into
small pieces. They then
put the knife aside and
consume it using only a
fork. The meal is now
pre-diced, like most Chinese food, so they could
comfortably finish it using chopsticks.
What about sitting
down to a mountain of
spaghetti? Traditionally,
it is eaten using only a
fork so chopsticks could
serve equally as well.
After all, the Italians
didn’t invent spaghetti;
the Chinese did.
Can a meat pie,
mashed potato and
mushy peas also be eaten
using chopsticks? The
peas and mash are a little
tricky but not impossible. The meat pie is
a different matter. For
the purposes of accuracy
of this article I actually
tried to eat a meat pie with chopsticks and failed miserably. Even if
pre-cut like the steak, the result was
horrible. This left me with no doubt
that a meat pie should only be eaten
by holding it in one hand and keeping
the other free to hold a can of beer.
‘Fried rice’ also cannot be eaten

efficiently using chopsticks; the rice
is too dry and not sticky enough.
But it may surprise you to learn
that fried rice is not a traditional
Chinese dish. Why would the Chinese invent a dish which rendered
their main eating utensils useless?
In rural China, away from the large
restaurants and tourist areas, you
won’t find it on any menu. The reason
is that fried rice is made using
yesterday’s rice and, in most parts
of China, there is no such thing.
When they eat a meal, they eat it
all. Fried rice was invented by chefs
in Hong Kong restaurants as a way
of getting rid of leftovers; sort of a
Chinese bubble ’n squeak.
For hundreds of millions of poorer
Chinese, a meal consists of a little
meat (whatever they can get their
hands on but invariably pork, chicken
or fish), a lot of green vegetables
and a whole lot of rice. They eat the
meat for protein, the vegetables for
flavour, and the bulk rice to fill their
bellies. The bowl of freshly boiled,
glutinous rice is brought to the
mouth and the chopsticks used to
simply shovel it in. Looks unseemly
but it is very effective.
Chopsticks are easy to clean,
eco-friendly and traditionally made
from ivory (oops!) or exotic timbers
(cedar, sandalwood or teak) from
virgin forests (oops!).
Bamboo
eventually became the most popular
material because it was inexpensive,
readily available, easy to split, resistant to heat, had no perceptible
odour or taste, and cutting down
bamboo really pissed the pandas off
(oops!). More recently came plastic (oops!) and finally wood from
regenerative, re-afforested plantations (hooray!).

Which brings me
to an interesting aside in
the wood versus plastic
debate. When I was growing up, wooden chopping
boards were commonplace and butchers used
large, sawn-off tree trunks
as benches for slicing
meat. Then some egghead sitting in the Health
Department with nothing better to do declared
wooden chopping blocks
were unhygienic and they
were promptly outlawed
in restaurants and any
places where food was
prepared.
Finally, someone
possessing common sense
decided to test it out, after
all, the Chinese had been
using wooden chopping
boards for thousands of
years and there had been
no noticeable decline in
their population due to
rampant food poisoning. Testing
two sterile cutting boards, one wood
and one made of the latest plastic,
they chopped at the boards with
cleavers to simulate excessive use
before rubbing contaminated meat
across each surface. After washing
both boards in normal household
detergent they analysed the surfaces to ascertain how much bacteria still remained. To no-one’s surprise, there were more bacteria left
on the wooden board. It seemed to
support the earlier ban on the use of
that material.
But they took the experiment
one step further by then rubbing
non-contaminated meat across
each board to find out how much of
the bacteria transferred to the fresh
meat. The result was astounding.
The plastic board transferred most
of its bacteria to the fresh meat
while the meat rubbed across the
wooden board remained relatively
uncontaminated. Further investigation
revealed that even though the fibres
in the wood trapped more bacteria,
the germs could not get out and
eventually died of heart failure,
fatigue or post-traumatic stress
syndrome. The plastic, on the other
hand, allowed a clean getaway for
most of the germs. Result: Wood wasn’t
so bad after all and the Chinese
were right all along. Perhaps they
are right about chopsticks too.
In conclusion, to those people
unskilled in their use, may I respectfully suggest you observe the
experts and learn from them. Failing
that, you could always opt for the
Confucian Diet which has only one
rule: You can eat anything you like
as long as you pick it up using chopsticks. You’ll learn real quick!

22 Pattaya One

Fun Town’s most vibrant

OuR MAN IN

By duncan Stearn

PATTAYA

Walk a Mile in
My Shoes
How many times has someone
said to you, “I knew it was you.
I’d know that walk anywhere?” If
there is one, occasionally defining,
aspect of a person’s character it is
their walk.
George Bernard Shaw’s play
Pygmalion was based around the
theme of taking an ill-educated
country bumpkin and turning her
into the sort of society lass men
of wealth and breeding would fall
over themselves to marry. One of
the key ingredients to the success of
this training was teaching the girl
how to walk like a lady of breeding.
Thai girls do not scamper about
like catwalk models. There again,
no-one, other than catwalk models,
people on bad acid trips and some
of the mentally disturbed, walk in
this fashion. I don’t understand
why modelling agencies teach
girls to walk as if they’re trying to
get chewing gum off the bottom of
their shoes. What is apparent from
close observation of the denizens of
Pattaya is there are a lot of persons
with a farming heritage, and Thai
buffaloes are wide in the rump. The
most overt effect of this farming
background and close association
with bovine-like creatures of some
bulk is the haemorrhoid walk. This
is characterised by the left leg
looking as though it’s fighting with
the right leg, causing many girls to
walk in the fashion of one who has
had a chrome pole shoved up the
clacker. Others seem to have just
finished a particularly gruelling
learn to drive lesson aboard the
largest buffalo in Chonburi.
A friend of mine once pointed
out the unusual gait of a Thai lady
of short stature ambling ahead of
us one sultry evening. He casually
remarked, “She walks like a duck.”
She did indeed resemble the sort
of life form generally found in a
farmyard, being not much taller
than a chicken, with the figure of
a goose, a face like a squirrel and
a walk that would embarrass any
self-respecting duck.
Then there is the amble. This
walk is particular to the majority
of Thai females and involves nothing more strenuous than placing
one foot in front of the other at a
pace only seen during the Slow
March at State funerals. To be truly

defining, this amble must be accompanied by the wobble. The wobble
is the action of slowly ambling in
anything other than a straight line
thereby causing pedestrian traffic
to build up behind you.
There is the Moon Walk or shuffle.
It’s not generally known the late
Michael Jackson copied his world
famous Moon Walk from secret
visits to Thailand. Apart from trying
to entice young monkeys out of trees
for a look at his latest operation
scar, Jackson observed the way
Thai girls performed what I term
the ‘pretend’ run. This is usually
when they are pretending to hurry
to meet a boyfriend and they go
into something akin to a slow motion
action replay of an Olympic walking champion. The pretend run
involves what appears to be a lot of
forward motion but in reality the
young lass merely advances at a pace
not much faster than a person who’s
undergone lower back surgery.
As people age, many find walking difficult and so, in Western
society we have the Zimmer frame.
Designed by Hieronymous von
Zimmer, an octogenarian former
U-Boat commander, who kept
falling head first onto the pavement
in his home town of Stinkenfart.
His daily intake of 16 large beer
steins contributed to this tendency
to fall over, but he realised he was
getting old and his legs weren’t
what they used to be.
So, von Zimmer created a simple
four-post iron frame that he could
push from behind and thereby
propel himself forward. Not only
did it stop him falling down he
found he could push dawdling
children, giggling schoolgirls and
pregnant women out of the way
with impunity.
In Thailand the Zimmer frame
hasn’t caught on and aging Thais
are forced to become a little more
inventive. The best I have seen is a
woman who owns the fittest chair
in Pattaya. The old lady takes her
daily constitutional around the
back sois, propelling a swivel chair
ahead of her. It’s like a cheap
Zimmer frame and is certainly
more stylish and practical. At least
when she gets tired of walking, she
can just sit down and relax. Try
doing that with a Zimmer frame.

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15
Don’t cum just yet: The Climax
go-go in Soi 15, off Walking Street,
is not a new den, just a new cognomen for an old place. Formerly
called Sakura Club 69, Climax
re-opened under new ownership
in February this year and was rebadged at the start of April. This is
a place that has been opened and
closed more times than a hooker
with a bad case of chlamydia.
As most readers are well aware,
I’m not keen on visiting new dens
on opening night, simply because
there is no real way to judge the
quality, or otherwise, of a place at
that point. I believe it’s worth waiting a couple of weeks to allow a
new or re-opened place to find its
legs, and other parts of the female
anatomy, before paying it a visit.
I went into Climax a few days
before the madness of Songkran
engulfed Fun Town, so I can’t say
the following is a completely fair
assessment as by this juncture
many of the better quality wallet
emptiers of Pattaya had already left.
The mamasan possessed the
girth of a person whose food intake
far exceeds daily calorific requirements. I think I recall her, or a twin
sister, threatening structural foundations in the old Utopia go-go
before it closed down the last time.
I am led to believe the people who
own Climax previously were the
operators of Utopia, so perhaps
Khun Girth of Global Proportions
is a trusted member of their inner
circle. At least she is friendly, or
at least was being so to the only
other customer in the joint, as she
squeezed his knackers, and made
his eyes pop.
There were about a dozen dancers
in the average-sized den, with
four on stage at any one time. A
few were easy enough on the eye.
Thankfully, those who were resting
between strenuous sets of chrome
pole molesting were fairly proactive, trying to cadge lady drinks
(120 baht) while the car alarm music blared.
The problem I see for Climax is
that it is stuck between two strong
dens: namely, What’s Up and
Baby Dolls. Without a real theme
or an absolute string of top sorts,
it’s going to struggle to accrue a
strong customer base.
A surprising success: One of
the longest-established places of
entertainment in Fun Town is the
Tim go-go, beer boozer, and pool
emporium (Second Road, opposite
Soi 12). Over a long period of time,
the eponymous owner has built a
strong client base but on a recent
visit to the den I was nonetheless
surprised to see just how busy it was.
I say surprised because there
surely can’t be any way the majority of punters were frequenting the
joint in the search for a g-stringed
Miss Right. The wallet emptiers
who have strangled the chrome

Pattaya One 23

Fun Town’s most vibrant

N ghtmarch
By duncan Stearn

poles in Tim over the years have
almost always tended to be on
the Michelin side of the weight
scale. Many have also been of an
age where they can vividly recall
black and white television. Admittedly, you don’t see too many
shuffling about the stage with the
latest tramp stamp stenciled on
their lower back, right buttock, left
breast or upper arm. The majority of the damsels also tend to be
a little stand0ffish, although this
is hardly uncommon in the airconditioned fleshpots of Pattaya.
Compared to most other dens in
the city, the girls are over-dressed;
mind you, this is not altogether a
bad thing in some cases. After all,
anyone who has seen pictures of
the average naturist camp at Bad
Farten in northern Germany would
appreciate the value of clothing.
The pool/snooker tables out the
back of the den are extremely popular. They are well maintained and
with prices at 120 baht per hour
offer good value. Drinks prices are
not outlandish (lolly water at 50
baht for example), but nor does
Tim offer the cheapest libations in
town either.
Perhaps the secret to Tim’s
success is threefold. First, of
course, is longevity. The place is
like a comfortable set of shoes,
careworn yes, but you know what
you’ll get. Second, is the location.
At first glance you might think it’s
in a bad spot, but there’s plenty of
walking traffic going up and down
from the direction of Soi Diana Inn
and The Avenue as well as plenty of
nearby hotels. Finally, the music.
Tim is known for its great videos
and rock and roll music: no car
alarm in here. Yes, it appeals to an
‘older’ crowd, but these are the very
people booking rooms in many of
the nearby sleeping palaces and
drinking at the cheap afternoon
beer boozers just across the road.
Hairstyles of the Japanese and
Koreans: Over the past decade
or so there has been a gradual and
definite growth in the numbers of
north Asian sex tourists, as opposed
to the decline in their Caucasian
counterparts. The management
of the twin go-go’s Super Baby
and Super girl (both in Soi Diamond, and on opposite sides to each
other) long ago realised they should
try and cater to the Japanese and
Korean males who were coming to
Fun Town to play hide-the-sukiyaki,
or fondle the kimchee, with willing
local damsels.

Email: duncan@pattayaone.net

Concomitant with this rise in the
north Asian punter base, the dancing damsels of Super Baby and
Super Girl have clearly adopted a
certain ‘look’ designed to appeal to
this demographic. On a recent visit
to Super Girl, the customers were
about evenly divided between
Caucasians and north Asians.
After a fire in the den a few years
ago, a Jacuzzi was installed. In this
ablution device there are always
two or three young ladies for whom
a Map of Tasmania takes preference
to a shaved minge. Apparently, the
north Asian customers feel more
comfortable with foliage. The topof-the-head hairstyles of the wallet
emptiers look, in the main, to have
jumped off the pages of magazines
like Seoul Sisters or I have a yen
for This: all bouffant and piled like
a freshly washed mop.
Super Girl, as with Super Baby,
always has a lot of dancers (30plus) who shuffle about in seethrough skirts and not much else
to music that sounds much like a
draw full of cutlery has been carelessly tossed into a rotary engine.
Lady drinks are 120 baht and
consist of a champagne glass filled
with some orange-like concoction.
Hitting the Jackpot: For just
over seven years now The Sportsman noshery and Anglophile beer
boozer (Soi 13) has been running an
in-house quiz. Over that time it has
become one of the more popular of
this type of event in Fun Town, and
much of the reason has to do with
the generosity of the management
of the Sportsman.
Conducted on a Thursday night,
and starting at about 9:00pm, the
quiz kicks off with a picture round
followed by a fairly rapid-fire set of
60 questions divided into six categories. All participants are given

a free mini-meal consisting of a
small meat pie and chips while the
members of the winning team get a
free drink of their choice.
At the end of the main quiz
teams can pay 100 baht to enter a
three-question Jackpot. This can be
well worth winning, and was recently
sitting at over 12,000 baht. The
three questions, of course, are not
meant to be easy, but nor are they
impossible. From what I’m told,
the quiz nights regularly attract
upwards of 35-40 players, so it’s a
real winner for the Sportsman.
The boozer also continues to
run its ‘Pot the Lot’ special on their
snooker/pool table. Over the years
this has been won quite a few times
so the amount is now just 2,000
baht. Nonetheless, plenty of people
have paid their 100 baht for a tilt
at trying to pot all the balls on the
table without a miss.
Noticeably improved: The
experiment with VAT and the
oblique result of the prices for
drinks (42.73 baht, for example, for
draft amber) in the Club Oasis
go-go (Soi Buakhow) is now well
and truly over, thankfully. VAT is
now simply included in the overall
price of a thirst quencher and this
has resulted in the punters coming
back. Whether rightly or wrongly,
there was a perception among
many customers that either they,
or the serving wenches, were being
ripped off. Not true, but the perception appeared to have a negative impact on the financial bottom
line for Club Oasis, so management
quickly addressed the situation. A
glass of draft amber fluid is now 49
baht, one of the cheapest deals in
town.
Piece of Pith: Confucious says:
‘Man who fish in other man’s well
often catch crabs.’

" VOTED
PATTAYA'S

# 1 GoGo

2008, 2009 & 2010 "
SOI 15 WALKING STREET
www.babydollspattaya.com

24 Pattaya One

1 - 15 May 2011 Issue 15

Fun Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most vibrant

Heroic defence by villagers delayed the
final destruction of Thailandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital
In the annals of Thai history, the
defence of the camp at Bang Rajan
against the invading Burmese army
in 1766 stands alongside the equally
folkloric efforts of the sisters Thao
Thep Krasattri and Thao Si Sunthon
in Phuket in 1785 and, later, of
Khunying Mo in the Laotian invasion
of 1827-1828. Sadly, the specifics of
the battle for Bang Rajan cannot be
verified, and much of what we know
has been embellished by legend.
Most of what we know about the
battle for Bang Rajan comes from
the writing of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab in his book Our Wars
with the Burmese. Considering
this was written about 150 years
or more after the event and there
are no original sources available,
itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hardly surprising that much of
the exact detail of what happened
remains pure conjecture. There
is little doubt a series of engagements and a siege did take place at
Bang Rajan and they provided what
proved to be the most heroic part of
the sorry episode which eventually
led to the destruction of the Ayutthayan empire after 417 years.
There are conflicting arguments
regarding the original purpose of the
Burmese invasion. Some Burmese
accounts claimed the entire reason
for the invasion was to effect the
destruction of Ayutthaya. Prince
Damrong and other Thai scholars
suggest the capitulation of Ayutthaya
was merely an unintended, but
fortuitous, result of that invasion.
As they point out, the usual reason
for invading another country was
not to take territory but to gather
slaves and carry off goods with the
aim of strengthening their own region.

Incursion

In July 1765, the Burmese launched
yet another of their periodic incursions into Thailand. Coming from
the north, where they had earlier
occupied the Laotian city of Luang
Prabang, the Burmese swept
through Lampang, Tak, Kamphaeng
Phet,
Sukhothai,
Phitsanulok,
and Nakhon Sawan. Thai sources
claim the Burmese army numbered
around 100,000 men, although this
is doubtful. The mere logistics of
trying to control and organise an
army of this size makes the numbers
unlikely.
Similarly, in September, a second
Burmese army (also suggested to be

Historical Feature
By Duncan Stearn

Bang Rajan monument

100,000 troops, but almost certainly
considerably less) left Tavoy and
invaded Thailand from the west,
taking Phetburi and Ratchaburi,
arriving almost unhindered outside
Ayutthaya about February 1766.
The northern Burmese army- approaching Ayutthaya via Angthong,
30 kilometres to the west of the
Thai capital- set up camp at Viseschaicharn, an open area on a canal
leading to the Chao Phrya River.
The Burmese troops, according
to the Thais, proceeded to harass
local villagers, demanding food,
stealing valuables, and molesting
the women. Unable to obtain aid
from Ayutthaya itself, a band of six
village chiefs decided to organise
resistance to the invaders.
Four of the men came from a
village in Singburi, the other two
from Viseschaicharn. After killing a few Burmese soldiers, they
fled to the village of Bang Rajan
(sometimes rendered into English
as Bang Rachan or Bangrachand).
Bang Rajan was a natural defensive position. Known for its fertile
land and abundance of food, it was
flanked by a wide canal giving it
protection from the Burmese camp
at Viseschaicharn, and it could be
reinforced from Suphanburi.

The six chiefs invited Phra
Dhammachot, an abbot from
Suphanburi, to join their cause.
Revered as a man of learning, and,
it was whispered, magic powers,
the abbot travelled to Bang Rajan.
If nothing else the abbot provided
a sense of spiritual strength to the
resistance.
The number of defenders ensconced in Bang Rajan soon grew
to 400 men, and a further five local
chiefs also entered the camp to join
the original six. One of the chiefs
was a renowned archer, another,
named Nai Thongmend, allegedly
rode into battle atop a water buffalo.

Siege
The Burmese commander, Nemiew,
got wind of the growth of the resistance and determined to nip it in
the bud, ordering his heavily armed
troops into action.
The first assault against Bang
Rajan commenced around May
1766. Despite superiority in numbers and armaments, the Burmese
were repulsed. Over the next three
months, the Burmese attacked in
force six more times. On each occasion they were beaten back and

every time more Thais arrived to
bolster the defences.
As a counter, Nemiew brought
up reinforcements and placed Sukee,
a Mon-Thai, at the head of his forces.
Sukee had lived for a time in Thailand and was well aware of the Thai
style of fighting.
After making certain that all
possibility of communication between Bang Rajan and Ayutthaya
was effectively halted, Sukee moved
his forces closer to the Thai village
and, rather than engage in frontal
assaults, started skirmishing operations on the flanks and using his
artillery to greater effect.
The attacks continued for a
number of days, inflicting a growing
number of casualties on the defenders. In frustration, Nai Thongmend,
allegedly drunk, gathered a small
Thai force and ventured beyond the
lines to attack a Burmese camp. Nai
Thongmend rode his water buffalo
deep into the Burmese lines, but a
counter-attack saw him cut down
along with a number of his troops.
It was the first major reverse for the
Thai defenders.
The Burmese tightened their grip
by shooting anyone who attempted
to bring food and other supplies
into Bang Rajan and increased their
cannonade of the encampment.
Additionally, the Burmese started
to dig a tunnel under the canal in an
attempt to get behind the defenders.
The Thais sent frantic pleas to
Ayutthaya to come to their aid, but
the capital was heavily invested and
unable to raise a relief force.
Finally, after a siege lasting five
months, the Burmese launched an
all-out assault, breaching the defences and overrunning the camp.
All 10 remaining chiefs were killed
or executed, as were most of the
defenders. Very few managed to
escape and those who were captured were made slaves. The abbot,
Phra Dhammachot, supposedly
disappeared. It is not known whether
he was killed in the final assault or
managed to escape.
In the 1970s the Thai government created a memorial park to
the heroes of Bang Rajan. In 1966
and 2000, two Thai movies were
made about the battle for Bang Rajan.
The story of Bang Rajan became
to the Thais what the siege of the
Alamo (1836) is to Texans and, by
extension, the United States: a
symbol of determination and heroism
against overwhelming odds.